


don't throw it away

by justdk



Series: keep it together [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen, POV Noah Czerny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21641386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdk/pseuds/justdk
Summary: Noah reflects on what life would have been like if he had lived
Series: keep it together [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1560091
Kudos: 12
Collections: Czernsgiving 2019 A Noah Week





	don't throw it away

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Czernsgiving Week, Day 1: If I Were Alive. It's the prelude to a series of works about Noah and his relationships

Noah didn’t spend much time thinking about what his life would have been like if he hadn’t been murdered seven years ago. Time was strange, stranger than it had been when he was alive. He circled through moments, moving back and forth through the years like a leaf caught in a gale. Now – now that it was _happening_ – he had better control, he could show up when he was supposed to, reveal secrets, whisper comfort, kiss, rage, hide, _haunt_.

Well, maybe his control wasn’t so great after all. He hadn’t wanted to hurt and scare his friends, not really. Something about being off the ley line had unbalanced him, leached away his sense of self until he was just ragged extremes of emotion, most of them bad. And then there was the matter of the demon… 

If he were alive he wouldn’t act like that. He wouldn’t act like his past seventeen-year-old Noah self, either. He would be as good as Blue thought he was, as honorable as Gansey imagined, as fun and reckless as Ronan wanted him to be, as loved and loving as Adam longed to be. He would be the best version of himself, the version that reflected the ideals his friends held for themselves and each other. He would belong with them, truly. 

Tragically, he wasn’t alive. But he told himself if he were alive they wouldn’t be friends. He would be _old_ , out of _college_ , probably. Twenty-four year olds did not hang out with high school kids. He tried to imagine being twenty-four but couldn’t. It was more painful than imagining himself a real boy attending class with Ronan, Gansey, and Adam. Maybe he could have taught? Been an art teacher? That would have been fun, maybe. Or he could have traveled around and made films about where he went and posted them on Youtube. He could have gone _viral_. He could have been more famous than the Murder Squash Song! There would be _T-shirts_!

Noah giggled to himself, the sound echoing in the empty spaces of Monmouth Manufacturing with no one to hear it. The boys were at Aglionby and Blue was at her school. Noah could visit them, if he wanted. But Aglionby was a spot he avoided and Mountain View Highwas depressing, even if Blue was there.

He drifted, unseen and incorporeal, through the familiar landscape of Monmouth. He wasn’t bound to this moment; he could kiss Blue again, be tossed out the window by Ronan, keep Gansey company while he worked on the model of Henrietta, or ruffle his fingers through Adam’s dusty hair while he slept, his head pillowed on his school books. He had a million moments with them, silly ones and serious ones. He’d been the guiding hand during moments of crisis – Gansey’s death, Ronan’s near miss with the night horrors, assisting Blue and Adam during the super scary scrying incident – and he’d been the confidant when they had, inexplicably, felt entirely alone.

If he had been alive he wouldn’t have been able to do that. If he were alive then Gansey would be dead. Ronan might be dead. What would become of Adam without Gansey and Ronan and Blue in his life? And Blue? Who would the psychic’s daughter fall in love with? Would she go on living under the curse, never knowing her true love was gone beyond her reach? Without his death, his sacrifice, where would they be?

That timeline was one that Noah could _not_ live with. Literally. He’d rather be dead than exist in a world where his friends – his best and truest friends – died and fell apart without him.

“Don’t throw it away,” he whispered to himself. He might be dead but he was going to make this second, spectral life count.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @dkafterdark


End file.
